Family gatherings provide lots of unknowing and willing subjects...

Wow... taking photos of people is so much more difficult than it looks, so I take my hat off to friends such as Lana Gurevich who take really good, professional photos of people. 

I drove up to Red Deer for a gathering with my extended family today, and we were lucky enough to have an amazing day with great weather.   With 30 or 40 people in attendance, it gave me the opportunity to start pointing my lens at real people instead of flowers or nature or buildings.  I'm pretty sure that I prefer catching people in the moment, rather than having formal posed portraits or groupings, so it was interesting (and frustrating) to watch these people and groupings appear out of nowhere and disappear as quickly as they appeared. 

I had some difficulties with the settings in the bright sun, so many pictures didn't turn out as I would have liked them to, but I was happy with about 10% of what I did take.

You really didn't expect me to just take pictures of people did you?

Focusing in on Dr. Doolittle

A few weeks ago, before the winter weather returned, I broke out the camera and headed off to the Calgary Zoo.  Where else can you find people, plants, animals, landscapes and dinosaurs in one place?  Well, I didn't really take any shots of people or dinosaurs, and no landscapes caught my attention, so I ended up with some shots of wild and plant life.

My goal with these photos was to "create the picture" in my mind before pressing the shutter release.  Trying to capture the subject in interesting poses without having a distracting background.  A lot of things to think about, but it seems to be one of those unwritten essential rules.  It probably IS written, but I haven't read far enough along to find that chapter yet!  These are taken with a Canon 40d with a 70-33mm telephoto lens.

The Best of Before the Blog

In the past, my taking photographs was very hit and miss.  I remember (mentally) one trip to England where I took a total of three photos... and two of them were on the ferry over the English Channel.  Another trip to Italy, I returned with probably 20+ rolls of film (before digital media.)

In the fall of 2008, I spent four months in Germany (with a holiday stop over in Costa Rica) and I promised myself that I would actively pull out my camera and take pictures.  Pictures for myself, as well as pictures to share with others. 

At this time, I had not really looked into how to improve the composition of my photos, so I make no apologies for the quality of the photos.  I took pictures of things that I thought were interesting, or that would be memorable.  Interestingly enough, most of the better pictures could have been taken anywhere, but there are some of the stand outs.

Berlin Holocaust Memorial

Salzburg, on top of the 'Burg'

Salzburg Cathedral

Hannover

Charlottenberg Palace, Berlin

New City Hall, Hannover

St. George Park, London

Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica

Playa Tamarindo, Costa Rica

Poas Volcano, Costa Rica

San Jose, Costa Rica

Orchid, Costa Rica

Costa Rican Traditional Ox-cart

Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica